


Betrayal

by Lirillith



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Loss, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-28
Updated: 2006-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terra, as she witnesses Kefka's rampage in Thamasa and deals with the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Betrayal

She didn't know the spell he was using, and she was glad of that. But some small part of her wondered about it, even as she watched the power streaming from his hands, dark like fire turned inside-out, watched it strike an Esper and saw flesh melt away from bone and bones dissolve into dust until only a core of glowing crystal remained, floating in midair, where once there'd been a person. A woman, Sylph, with gossamer wings and green eyes without any white in them at all, but when Relm had asked permission to touch her wings, she'd laughed just like a human.

She couldn't seem to move. She couldn't lift her head; Sylph and Kefka had just happened to be in her line of sight, but she couldn't roll over to see the source of the screaming behind her, let alone rise and try to help. She heard the strange buzzing noise of Kefka's dark spell again, but she couldn't see who he'd targeted this time. She could feel their minds around her, earlier, and now she could feel them being snuffed out, or nearly so; she could feel each one reduced to a frightened, angry, trapped sliver, and she could identify a few of them, Sylph and Yura and a tall woman who'd asked if she was "Maduin's little girl" and then asked to speak to her privately after the official talks.

She couldn't feel Leo's mind, or his death, and she wasn't able to see it; she didn't even realize until afterwards that he'd been able to move, that he'd fought Kefka when none of them could. He'd been stabbed in the back; she hoped he hadn't suffered much, but that seemed like a stupid thing to hope, because death was death, and it would have hurt. Celes had gotten angry when she was told how he'd been killed; Kefka must have sneaked up on him, she said. He wouldn't have run. Everyone had agreed on that, but Celes had stayed angry. Terra wasn't sure how she felt. Leo had seemed to understand her, and he'd spoken, at least a little, about the time before, when she was an Imperial soldier. She'd wanted to speak to him again. She felt empty, hollowed-out, and lost; she wasn't sure if that was the same as being sad, or grieving for him, or for any of the others she'd only just met. She wasn't sure how to ask.

"People only seem to want power," she said, to no one - or maybe to Leo - as they stood by the grave. She knew power meant more than magic, but that was the way she always thought of it first - Edgar offering her a chance to learn more about her power, Celes asking her about being born with "the power," Banon asking her to lend the Returners her power. She'd never wanted it, hadn't even wanted to understand it, at first; she'd just wanted people to stop looking at her that way, fearfully and sometimes greedily, when they found out what she could do. "Do they really want to be like me?" she asked, much quieter, because she knew now that she didn't want any of the others to hear her. "I don't. I don't want it. I just wanted to talk to you," she said, feeling like she might cry. She swallowed hard, and dropped the blue flower she was holding onto the wooden box, but she stood a moment longer, staring down at the flower on the coffin, not ready to turn back toward the others.  



End file.
